Posts Tagged ‘Jewish community’

This week, Jews in New York join with Jews in Israel and Jews around the world in beginning to read Sefer Devarim—the book of the Torah that more than any other sets forth the eternal bond uniting the people of Israel, the tradition of Israel, and the God of Israel with the Land of Israel.

The promise and dream of the Land of Israel, and what the people of Israel can accomplish there with God’s help, has inspired Jews for over 3,000 years, and still does so today, July 28, 2014, here in New York and around the world. We cleave to it in the face of enemies who do not want the Jewish people living in its homeland once again, some of whom do not want Jews to be living anywhere.

We pledge eternal loyalty to the promise and the dream, to the families of young Israelis who have given their lives—and continue to risk their lives as we speak—in this latest chapter of a long struggle. We will remember them and the millions of Israelis making sacrifices daily on the home front, the way Jews remember—not just in words or mental images, but by pursuing with all our strength the dream they share, and giving heart and soul to the fulfillment of the promise that is the State of Israel.

To those listening to our words in the State of Israel I say know that the Jews of New York stand with you at this moment as we will stand with you always. You are not alone in the face of our enemies. “The people of Israel lives” and prays in one voice on this Rosh Hodesh day that the Holy One will protect our soldiers from every trouble and evil design and cause the work of their hands to be for blessing and success and shall bring them home for life and for peace.

We shall stand with our soldiers and their families and communities always, despite political and religious differences in New York as in Israel, grateful to be alive at this unique moment in Jewish history when the State of Israel is once more alive to nourish and sustain us with its many blessings.

We shall stand with you—whether Reform or Orthodox or Conservative or any other kind of Jew; whether old or young, male or female—in a bond that is fundamental, nonnegotiable, and unbreakable, knowing that the strength and well-being of our community in New York are bound up with the strength and well-being of the Jewish communities that comprise the State of Israel.

We shall stand with you in mourning together the lives that have been lost in defense of our homeland, and in mourning, too, the innocent lives lost in Gaza because a brutal terrorist regime uses its citizens as shields and cynically exploits their suffering for political gain.

And we shall stand with you in coming months, praying alongside you for a just and enduring peace and an ultimate resolution of the conflict that has claimed so many lives.

On behalf of Conservative-Masorti Jews around the world, and our friends and family members who walk other Jewish paths, I assure our friends and family in Israel that Od lo avda tikvatei’nu. The book of Devarim commands Jews to choose life. Choose good. Choose blessing. No devarim, no words, penetrate more deeply into our hearts and souls. No devarim, no facts on the ground, arouse our commitment and resolve more than those being created and defended by our brothers and sisters in and for the sake of Israel.

Let’s promise again at this moment, each one of us individually and all of us together, that we will never cease striving to fulfill the promise and dream that is Israel.

I post this blog at a moment when the Jewish community in North America urgently needs good rabbis. If you are considering the rabbinate as a vocation or have toyed with the idea in the past or are open to weighing the possibility now, I hope to persuade you to do so. Of course, I’d be most pleased if you pursue your studies for the rabbinate at The Jewish Theological Seminary, which I believe offers the single best training ground for the profession available anywhere, and hope that you will find your spiritual home in Conservative Judaism, which I believe is the most compelling way to teach and practice Torah in our day. But even if you don’t come to JTS, and choose to work outside the framework of Conservative Judaism, I hope you will give the rabbinate serious thought. The Jewish community needs good rabbis across the board, on and off the pulpit, and arguably needs them—needs you—more than ever before.

Let me begin with a personal story. One day about 40 years ago, a rabbi whom I greatly respect asked me in the course of a conversation about my PhD thesis on American Judaism why I was not studying for the rabbinate.“I don’t think I have enough faith to be a rabbi,” I replied without hesitation. His response, as I recall it, was equally immediate. “Faith has nothing to do with being a rabbi.”

It took me years to understand what the rabbi, a man of deep faith, meant by that remark, but now I think I do: he was saying that I could dedicate my life to teaching the Jewish tradition, strengthening the Jewish community, and representing the tradition and the community to the world at large without attaining clarity (at least at the start) about what I believed on matters such as Creation, Revelation, redemption, or whether God actually hears prayer. Rabbis are teachers first of all. Many (including about 40 percent of those ordained in recent years at JTS) do not serve in a congregational pulpit. If you are leading a Jewish organization or a campus Hillel, for example, “faith in God,” while it is certainly a major asset, might count for less than teaching ability, people skills, and faith in the potential of Jewish individuals and groups to make a difference in the world. I think the rabbi who addressed me that day wanted to make sure that I was not closing the door to a career in the rabbinate because of problems I had at that point with traditional pillars of Jewish belief. I want to do the same for you, though I will return to the question of faith in God in a moment. The years have changed me on that score, and probably will do the same for you.

So what is required of an individual considering the rabbinate? What must you profess, as it were, to join this profession? I offer four thoughts on the matter, based on a very personal reading of Pirkei Avot 1:6.

17 Iyyar 5772

It’s always a pleasure for me—the JTS chancellor who is not a rabbi—to spend time with members of the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), kindred spirits to me on the path of Torah. A lot of good people doing dedicated, imaginative, and often successful work. Lively conversation partners. Spirited daveners. My pleasure at their company was enhanced at this year’s RA convention in Atlanta—from which I make this post—by the rollout of a new continuing education seminar, “Making Torah Relevant to “NextGen”: You’re the App for That!,” offered jointly by the RA and The Jewish Theological Seminary, coordinated on our behalf by Rabbi Hayim Herring, with Jane Shapiro as lead educator. The subject is one that is uppermost on the minds of many rabbis, whether they serve in congregations, schools, camps, organizations, campus Hillels, or military chaplaincy. I too think about it a lot: